ORIGIN - Saddled By Rules

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'Do not leave Eridanus' had long ago slid from the wood foal's mind. Wicker was here, instead, after a long stint spent prancing around Pisces, and an even longer one spent squinting up at Orion's questionable 'stars.'

Now he was cavorting around this tunnel, excitedly clambering over bits of old armor and leaping among metal scraps as he examined it all. "What are you?" he asked a shield.

It didn't answer him.

Nothing had, yet. The fish in Pisces had ignored him, the bacteria he sensed all over remained silent, and all this metal, and the jewels and leather pieces left here and there, refused to answer. And all of that despite the fact that his magic told him it all held life, at least a little; less here, though, in the dusty heat. But it all stayed quiet nonetheless. That all sort of sucked, really, because Wicker was bored and wanted to talk to someone.

He stretched his neck down, nosing with his skull-like face at a scrap of old and rusted steel, then sneezed; this stuff was dusty! He pawed at it, instead, wincing a little when part of it crumbled to red-colored sand.

"Sorry," he told the metal, and looked up and around. This stuff looked neat, but he had no idea what it was for and it could only keep his attention for so long.

"Hello?" he called, at last, and started further up the tunnel. "Is anybody there?"

@Spark

Spark had recieved a similar set of instructions they had conveniently forgotten. "Stay close, stay in Orion." It had been shoved in the far corners of their mind as soon as they set eyes on the entrance to tunnel J whilst following a breadcrumb trail of rusted metal. Their lowest priority, as they stared at the massive and glittering carving at the entrance, guarding the the tunnel. Or in their mind, inviting them in. Their eyes had dipped to the floor again as they explored, picking up the relics that stuck out to them, examining them briefly, then discarding them again.

After the lesson from the blacksmith, they had become a bit obsessed with the art of smithing. Mostly just the concept of it, they hadn't practiced much after. These relics where carved by hand, and they were designed for something. Figuring out what was half the fun, a sort of amateur study in archeology. Their ideas of what could've been were discarded as easily as the metal. Nothing they came up with sounded quite right to them, they wanted something that could tell them its story as clear as day.

The sound of a voice further ahead froze them stiff, unprepared for company. They slowly put down the scrap they were holding, the shattered edge of a sword. They rose, peeking from the rubble like a strange white meerkat, searching for its source. Regardless of how friendly the foal had looked, the reaction would've been the same. A startled gasp and an immediate ducking of the head, knocking some debris with a soft clatter. Unsure of what to do, they prayed in vain that they had not been sighted.

@Wicker

Wicker wasn't all that vigilant a wanderer--being young, inexperienced, he was more likely to put himself in danger than anything.

Yet the clatter was hard to miss, and he spun with a sudden spark of fear in his chest, uncertainty driving him then to stillness. One hind hoof slowly lowered itself down as he stared off down the tunnel, his mind conjuring up half-formed images of shadowy monsters that might be lurking there.

He reached out with his magic again to try and see what might be there, hesitating, his ears spinning this way and that--and when nothing immediately came again (and when his magic gave him nothing, for the first time in his young life), he called out in a quietly uncertain voice.

"Hello?"

The rasp in it was pronounced, made all the more noticeable by his fear. He wasn't sure whether he should run for it (and the realization that the sound had come from between him and safety was frightening), or assure whoever it was that he was friendly, or promise certain death or something if he were attacked.

"M-my dad's a Champion," he settled on, a clearly frightened warning with a waver in every word. He didn't even know what it meant--only that one father had assured him that he was, indeed, a Champion of something-or-other and that made him strong.

Then Wicker took another step back, stumbled on a twisted length of metal and fell directly onto his own rump, hocks tucked beneath him. This kicked up a cloud of dust, and he sneezed.

So much for first impressions.

@Spark

They hid behind their pile of scrap, frozen and staring at the top of the heap, waiting for something to leap out at them. They had barely glimpsed the other gembound, but what little they had scene was enough to conjure frightening images of a rotting foal, something eager to feast on careless souls. A careless soul like them, in this moment of fear they realised it would've been wise to stay closer to home. Ember was gonna be so mad.

The voice called out again. Spark thought it sounded young, Spark knew it sounded scared. They had no concept of what a champion was, nor did it mean much to them. Taking it as friendly competition rather than a threat, they called out too from behind their pile. "My dad's a dragon!" Half a dragon, a technicality that didn't matter in their mind. It sounded better than a champion at least.

The thud of the foal falling pulled their head upwards again, peeking so that only their eyes and nose were visible. They hadn't been too far from their assumptions, if the foal wasn't so young he'd certainly be fearsome, but the sneeze cast much of the fear away. Spark giggled at his expense.

The hybrid climbed the pile, slinking towards the other child in the slow, careful way they did most things. They crouched low to the ground, approaching at a diagonal. "And what are you?" Meant literally, of course.

@Wicker

He was still trying to puzzle out what a 'dragon' was (his mind correctly conjuring up the images of scales and an immense body and wings and fire) when he heard laughter at his fall.

Wicker'd never been laughed at before, and even though Spark probably wasn't trying to be mean, he felt... bad. Uncomfortable. He didn't know enough to put the word "embarrassed" to it--partly because his poor little brain was still trying to think of what a "dragon" was.

"Hey," he protested weakly, his ears flattening with shame, as he came upright. But his curiosity, and his awe, won out. "...He's a dragon?" he asked, and the fact he was impressed showed clearly in his voice.

Only belatedly did he really look at the stranger, examining the pale fur, the shining golden bits. Spark looked... majestic to Wicker, sort of, if a little ungainly in a childlike sort've way. "What are you?" he countered, curious. Half-dragon and half--what? "I'm a horse," he added, proudly.

Which was, of course, wildly untrue. But his fathers had shrugged off the question of his species, noting only (and with intense confusion on both their parts) that Wicker looked "like a horse," so he'd assumed that's what he was. "My Dad was a Champion," he sort of accidentally repeated, in explanation, "and my other dad's a tree. Um. A Creation," he tried (and mostly failed) to clarify.

He'd been told that an Overseer'd made his tree-dad, but he didn't know what most of that meant. It'd gone in one freshly-hatched ear and out the other. "Oh, I'm Wicker," he offered. And realizing this might be mistaken for a 'what' and not a 'who,' he added, "That's my name. -What's yours?"

@Spark

Spark didn’t shrink back at the foals protest, intrigue swallowing any would be anxiety over the stranger. He was a curious, gangly thing. Not little, at least by Spark’s standards. They would always be lower to the ground than most. As they got level with the gembound it was clear he stood quite a bit taller.

It seemed that Spark had won the title of “cooler dad”, relishing in the pride the foal’s reaction instilled. The title didn’t conjure the same image, of a fearsome beast with fiery breath and scales as strong as diamond. They’d only think of fire, a warm welcoming hearth. Maybe a big lizard if they thought hard enough. They didn’t really think themselves a dragon either. Spark hadn’t sought any definition, any label for what they were. They were definitely more of a “go with the flow” kid.

But the foal’s question did get them to think on these things. They were dragon, they were wolf, but what else? Their golden wings were clearly of neither, and they had yet to find any feathers on their father. They could answer with what they knew, but it wouldn’t be the whole truth, like the other gembound’s answer. Spark didn’t quite know what a horse was, but assigning the label to the foal in front of them seemed… presumptuous.

Ignoring the question, the hybrid tilted their head. “Other dad?” Strangely enough, it was the fact that the “horse” had two parents that intrigued them, not that the other parent was apparently a tree. Spark only had one father, what was it like having two? How would that even work?

“I’m Spark.” They responded, the only question about themselves they could reliably answer.

@Wicker

He hesitated for a moment--there was some sense that maybe not all his questions had been answered, but he didn't yet have the short-term memory to really remember what it was he'd asked to begin with. "Spark?" he echoed, trying to think of what the word meant. It conjured up ideas of brief pain and bright light, but he didn't quite know why. The golden splashes across the other child's coat, though, sort of worked for it.

"My other dad!" he agreed, and then peered at Spark. "Oh! Did you come from a rock?" Suddenly Wicker sounded simply excited, equally unconcerned with this new companion's closer proximity. "Dad--uh, Shango-Dad--said one dad has to make the stone come alive and then my other dad--he gave the stone? But Dad--Shango-Dad--said he made just stones come alive, before! Like, he just found them. I have sisters... somewhere," he went on, and glanced around as if they might appear then and there.

"I think he just finds the stones," he added, in a sort of hushed, awed confession. As he spoke he leaned down, nudging aside a bit of scrap metal and then some more, as if looking for a stone himself. "He said when we die we leave stones behind. So they could be anywhere! ...Even here."

He didn't really think to ask Spark much more of themselves--where they came from, what sorts of things they liked or disliked. That might come with time, but right now he was thinking of adventure. Oh, and the important part--"Do you want to be friends?"

@Spark

In contrast, the name ‘Wicker’ didn’t conjure anything for Spark. They thought about a little more, and they could maybe connect it to some kind of wood, but the association was tenuous. More than likely, whenever the word would come up in conversation they’d think to this strange, spindly foal before them, unless taking up basket-weaving was somewhere in their future.

Had they come from a rock? What rock? Spark supposed the chrysalis could count, though it was barely a rock to them. More like an egg, with its inner membranes and warm slime. Wicker rushed his explanation, and they had to had to strain their fluffy ears to actually hear all of it. It occurred to them that he was referring to their gem, nestled in their skull much like an egg in its nest, but they had assumed it was created within the chrysalis, as their body and mind had been.

Did they have another father? Had they had bug wings like Spark’s? It seemed more and more likely that was the case. Why hadn’t they seen them yet? Why hadn’t Ember told them? Did they have siblings too? It would be nice to find someone else like them when everything seemed so different. Wicker continued, about how stones are left after death, which struck Spark with the most uncomfortable déjà vu. Luckily, the foal’s question offered a distraction from the horror of existential dread. They were too young to linger on these kinds of things after all.

They blinked slowly, considering. They were more bird than canine in their demeanour, and more owl than vulture.”Sure.” They answered simply, not seeing any harm in it. Maybe they could search for scraps in these tunnels together.

@Wicker

Wicker peered for a moment. One of his questions had gone unanswered, and curiosity still burned at him; but was there a reason Spark hadn't answered? Maybe it's something sad? his mind hazarded, unsure. Unfortunately, Wicker wasn't able to drop it so easily. At length, he simply blurted it again: "Did you come from a rock?" Because the alternatives--that Spark had come from something else--were captivating.

What if Spark had come from... from water, or air, or--anything that wasn't rock?! What if there were whole ways of getting born that Wicker didn't know about?

He waited a beat, then turned, pawing his wood-like hooves at the scraps in the tunnel. And at last he began wondering about Spark's personal life. "Do you live near here?" he asked, his rasping voice holding the squeak of youthful excitement.

Even as he asked, he was going about searching through the rubble, with eyes as well as magic. He doubted there'd be anything alive in here, but it didn't hurt to check.

But he found that everything was sort of the same all over, here. "I have magic!" he offered suddenly, poking at an old shield with his 'nose.' "But I don't--I can't find anything alive with it. That's what it does, it finds live stuff," he went on, cheerfully babbling. "Have you got magic-?"

He glanced back at Spark, curious. So far as Wicker knew, there were only two or three kinds of magic in the world. He wondered which the dragon-bug-creature had! "What do you think this thing is, anyway?" and he kicked at the shield in puzzlement.

@Spark

Wicker stared at them, and Spark worried that they had a bug caught in their coat. It'd happened a couple of times already, and none of those times had been fun. When he repeated his question, They were equal parts relieved and anxious. Their neglect of the query the first time had been entirely accidental, but that didn't mean they actually knew how to answer. "I guess?" But they did not truly understand what came first, body, mind or stone. They had assumed the gem had grown with them in the chrysalis. Where had they come from exactly? something to interrogate their dad about at the end of the day.

Speaking of interrogation, Spark realised that they hadn't had offered any questions of their own. It felt as though Wicker and them were operating on different levels, one of them much quicker than the other. They 'd make a better attempt to match his energy then, they were friends after all. "I do, I live in Orion. Where do you live?" They watched him rummage through the rubble, before making their way beside him to join him in scrounging for cool stuff. They were mostly focused on Wicker's activities though, their poking and prodding of old metal mindless fiddling rather than a focus of their attention. The hybrid and the foal were different, incredibly so, and that intrigued them.

"I do have magic, your's sounds cooler though." While they were proud of their capabilities, they hadn't been too useful in the caves so far. They hadn't been anywhere exceptionally cold, and their coat kept out most of the chill, given that it wasn't wet at least. Still, they wouldn't pass up the opportunity to show off.

OW. Instead of a pleasant warm light, the magic flashed once, Spark's eyes lighting up as their internal temprature rocketed, if only for a moment. It was gone as soon as it arrived, leaving an unpleasant burning in their chest. "Owwww." They repeated, aloud this time, doubling over in pain. That wasn't how it was supposed to work, right? Wicker's last question fell on deaf ears, they'd need a moment to recover.

@Wicker

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